“This system has been rigged so everyone feels they have to vote for Clinton, and we’re just not going to fall for that”. They report effusively favorable responses from normally taciturn Philadelphians upon seeing the pair’s Hillary Clinton buttons.
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Left without options, Wasserman Schultz abruptly fell – or was pushed – onto her sword Sunday, resigning her post as the party’s head. Wasserman Schultz was booed Monday morning at a meeting with the Florida delegation.
“To not be fair during this entire process, it’s kind of shameful”, delegate Sanjay Patel, a Sanders supporter from Brevard County said before she spoke at Florida delegation breakfast. That request was also met with boos from some of his supporters.
The socialist senator made clear that his invocation of the “real world” was not meant to discourage the crowd’s broader aspirations for radical change.
“We have got to defeat Donald Trump and do everything we can to elect Hillary Clinton to the White house”, Sanders tweeted.
Sanders supporters certainly weren’t amused. He also will note the “most progressive platform in Democratic Party history” includes agreements he reached with Clinton to expand access to health care and make public college tuition-free for students from families with annual incomes up to $125,000 a year.
Sanders delegate Seth Berner, of Portland, said many people adamantly opposed to Clinton have hardened that stance following the release of DNC emails apparently showing staff working against Sanders. “We know that he needs to say what he needs to say because he is on a Democratic convention floor, which is corrupt”, she said when I asked her what she made of Sanders’s comments about party unity today. “We are all Democrats and we need to act like it”.
Democratic strategist Douglas Smith suggested Monday that party leaders are correctly trying to keep the email story from continuing for days and months, which would further damage Wasserman Schultz.
Patrick Miller is a political scientist at the University of Kansas.
Beyond her DNC role, Wasserman Schultz is also considered a prolific fundraiser and deeply in touch with district voters, include many who like her are Jewish. “She [Clinton] didn’t win in a democratic way, she didn’t win anything, and if they appoint her, we will show them exactly what democracy is by leaving their party and voting for [Green Party presidential candidate] Jill Stein”.
Bernie Sanders called his campaign a “fantastic start” to a movement to revolutionize politics and policy, but as the Democratic National Convention got underway, his supporters had mixed feelings about his call for party unity.
Their focus on the DNC leak, rather than the troubling allegations that Russian-backed hackers may have hacked them, is misplaced, he said. Trump called those claims a “joke”. If Goldberg had read up on the details of the hacked emails and their significance, it was not entirely apparent.
“I think Hillary will come out of this with a big boost, despite the disruption that may happen”, said Reggie Lafayette, the Westchester County Democratic chairman.
Arthur Lupia is a political scientist at the University of MI.
The protests were early signs that the convention would not be a smooth four-day coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president.
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Lupia adds that Clinton is likely to appeal to “moderate Republicans who find themselves uncomfortable with some of Donald Trump’s positions on trade, global alliances, and immigration”.
